The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II is a role-playing video game developed by Nihon Falcom and Vicarious Visions for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3 video game consoles. First published by the company in Japan in 2014, it was later translated into English and published by Xseed Games and Activision in 2016 in North America. It is the twelfth entry in the The Legend of Heroes series, and a direct sequel to the prior entry, the original Trails of Cold Steel. Another sequel, Trails of Cold Steel III has been announced for release in Japan in late 2017. Gameplay The game plays very similarly to the original Trails of Cold Steel game, playing as a traditional JRPG with turn-based battles. The game is not, however, tied to the school schedule structure of the original, with the game now centered around traveling the world rather than attending classes. If the player has a completed game save file from completing the prior game, it has an effect on the game of Cold Steel II, with certain events and dialogues playing out different based on choices and relationships built in the prior game. Story The game is a direct sequel to the original Trails of Cold Steel, picking up one month after the close of the prior game, with Rean having escaped with Valimar. He makes it to his hometown of Ymir where princess Alfin also escaped to, but she is kidnapped along with Rean's sister Elise. The rest of class VII has scattered over the country and he goes around gathering them and other Thors students, and after being given the airship Courageous by Olivier, uses Valimar to help civilians and look for Alfin and Elise. The coup turns out to have been a plot by the leader of the Noble Alliance, Duke Cayenne, a descendant of the false emperor who had been defeated by emperor Dreichels, ancestor to the current imperial family, to gain power, and the Witch of the Abyss Vita Clotilde, second Anguis of Ouroboros, had been cooperating with him to fulfil the Phantasmal Blaze plan by making the Blaze Holy Castle appear and have the two God Knights, Valimar and Ordine, duel there. When Ordine loses, however, Cayenne awakens the crimson God Knight Testarossa and thus the End of Vermillion, a legendary holy-god once sealed by Dreichels himself. Rean and Crow cooperate to seal the End of Vermillion away again but Crow is killed in the process. At this point the Noble Alliance's advisor Rufus reveals himself to have been working for Osborne all along, and Osborne reveals himself to be alive and also Rean's father, before hijacking Ouroboros' Phantasmal Blaze plan. There is also an epilogue in which the player controls Lloyd and Rixia from [[The Legend of Heroes VII|''Zero'' and Ao no Kiseki]], who are now part of the Crossbell resistance fighting the Erebonian occupation of the city-state, and they are confronted Rean, who now works for Osbourne and is known as the Ashen Chevalier and a hero of the Erebonia who helped take Crossbell. Development The game was released in Japan on September 25, 2014. The game was translated into English by Xseed Games and Activision Blizzard. Work on translating the game began on February 2015, and was a massive project, containing 1.45 million characters to be translated. Translating alone took around a year, with it being about 95% complete in January 2016. Xseed and Activision Blizzard also added approximately 11,000 lines of English dialogue for its English release. The game was released in North America almost two years after the original Japanese release, on September 6, 2016, and two months later on November 11, 2016 in Europe. Music Hans Zimmer and John Powell both returned to composed the score for the video game sequel Trails of Cold Steel II. Later the additional music was composed by Lorne Balfe, Andrew Kawczynski, Steve Mazzaro, Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL), Rupert Gregson-Williams, Benjamin Wallfisch, Jasha Klebe, Atli Örvarsson, Geoff Zanelli, Anthony Willis and Paul Mounsey. The orchestral score was conducted by Gavin Greenaway and Richard Harvey when the score was recorded at Air Lyndhurst Studios, Temple Church and Abbey Road Studios by Alan Meyerson and Geoff Foster and mixed at Remote Control Productions and 5 Cat Studios by Alan Meyerson and Shawn Murphy. A soundtrack album was released in CD album and digital release on February 11, 2014 by WaterTower Music. Reception and sales The game was generally well received by critics. On Metacritic, a website that aggregates review scores, the Vita version of the game received an 80/100 score, based on reviews from 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The PS3 release received a 90/100 rating, but based on just 4 critic reviews. Chris Shrive of Hardcore Gamer strongly praised the game for being "a modern JRPG masterpiece" with "the perfect blend of the classic JRPG formula mixed with contemporary features" concluding that "the emphasis on story telling and immense cast of memorable characters make the large time commitment worthwhile." Kimberly Wallace of Game Informer was similarly positive about the game's story and characters, but complained of the game's dull dungeons design. Despite the shortcommings, she still felt that the game "takes the cast and story in such interesting directions and provides so much to do that it’s hard to put down...game makes me care so much about the characters and the world that it becomes easier to look past its flaws." Darren McPhail of RPGSite was similarly positive about the game, stating "For fans of the previous Legend of Heroes games and especially the first Trails of Cold Steel, picking up Trails of Cold Steel 2 is a no-brainer easy recommendation. While this sequel is unevenly paced and lacks shocking plot twists until the conclusion, the Trails of Cold Steel games are some of the best of the genre and well worth a look for most hardcore RPG fans." All three reviewers agreed that, while it was possible to enjoy the game's story as a stand-alone experience, the story was better for people who had played the original Trails of Cold Steel first, due to the game's direct ties to one another. In Japan, the game sold 86,283 physical retail copies on the PlayStation Vita and 65,498 retail copies on the PlayStation 3 within its debut release week, representing a shipment sell-through of 71.96% and 77.3% respectively. Within that week, the Vita version placed second amongst all software sales in Japan, while the PS3 version placed fifth. Famitsu gave both versions of the game a review score of 31/40. External links * Official website Category:2014 video games Category:PlayStation Vita games Category:PlayStation 3 games Category:Role-playing video games Category:The Legend of Heroes series Category:Politics in fiction Category:Vicarious Visions games Category:Activision games Category:Film scores by Hans Zimmer Category:Film scores by John Powell (film composer) Category:Films directed by Steve McQueen Category:Films directed by Bill Condon Category:Films produced by Christopher Nolan Category:Films produced by Lauren Shuler Donner Category:Films produed by Kevin Feige Category:Films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Category:Screenplays by David S. Goyer Category:Screenplays by Evan Spiliotopoulos